Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
String Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and boil
Snap and wash the string beans. Boil in plenty of water for about 15 minutes. Drain the beans. Return the beans to about 2 quarts of boiling water. Boil for 1½ hours.
Finish the dish
Add salt and pepper just before serving. Stir in the butter, rubbed into the flour, and the sweet cream. Dress as above.
Optional pork and shelled beans
Alternatively, boil a piece of salted pork for 1 hour. Add the beans to the pork and boil for 1½ hours. For shelled beans, boil for 30 minutes in enough water to cover.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,733 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beans + porktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,000 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,080 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- String beans
- Main vegetable, softened to tenderness through long simmering in water.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid as its starch swells when heated.
- Butter
- Adds richness and coats the flour so it blends smoothly into the liquid.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness and a silky body to the finished liquor.
The step that matters
Stirring in the butter and flour. Flour clumps when added straight to hot liquid. Rubbing it into the butter first coats each grain, so it disperses evenly and thickens without lumps as the starch heats.
Swap the beans
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, flour, cream, pork):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Beansthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, cream, pork. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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